


Machines

by NelaNequin



Series: Hamburg in the shadows [1]
Category: Shadowrun
Genre: F/M, Hamburg, Team Dynamics
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-29
Updated: 2016-06-12
Packaged: 2018-07-10 22:48:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7011388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NelaNequin/pseuds/NelaNequin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Living in the shadows had never been a problem for Pakhet – it was simply a matter of sticking to the rules: The rules of the shadows and her own personal set of rules. Both are easy to remember, easy to stick to, at least that is what Pakhet thought. That is until a team of runners sets off a terror alert in Hamburg and her curiosity gets her stuck with those runners, well, or one of them at least.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I – It starts with a bang

**Author's Note:**

> This story is my first proper try to write a story in Englisch. I am not a native speaker, so I am thankful for any tips you can give me on spelling, grammar and phrasing.
> 
> This story is a write-up of the misadventures of our Shadowrun-group. Of course some events have been changed to fit more in a proper narrative. It might be added, that the other players, as well as our GM, have agreed that characters and plot may be used for this story.
> 
> Additionally it shall be noted here that the story is written purely from Pakhet's perspective, which leads to some of the other characters being depicted in a bad light. This has nothing to do with my personal liking of those characters, but rather with the character's impression of them.

It all started with a bang – literally. A bang so loud, that just for a moment it made the city shake. Windows broke, cars stopped and it only took seconds for the sirens of HanseSec to start howling through the streets.

Pakhet, too, had stopped her motorcycle, once she had seen the enormous fireball shooting into the cloudy sky above Harburg. “What the fuck...” she muttered under her breath, knowing very well that both the bang and the fireball originated from an explosion and by the looks of it not a small amount of explosives.

As many others she could not help but wonder, who the hell would blow up that amount of explosives in Harburg. Or even better: Who had gotten his or her hands on that amount of explosives, as prices for explosives were on the rise for months.

But unlike many others she knew somebody who would probably be able to answer those questions. As her curiosity had already kicked in and she had wanted to visit Michael anyway she started the motorcycle again and turned it around.

The woman, who called herself Pakhet once had been named Joanne Snyder, but working in the shadows for seven years that name had become something like a shadow itself. To her it was nothing more then a distant memory.

Seven years ago she would never have believed it, but Pakhet actually enjoyed working in the shadows. In a way it was easier then having a regular job and it was less boring by far. She had not to answer to anyone on the long term and other then in her old live she was actually respected – though not too much. After all she had done her very best to be not known in the shadows. She never wanted to do any of those high profile jobs, that made you money, but were also quite likely to get you killed.

It was one of her personal rules. Those kinds of rules, that every shadowrunner had. Not the general rules in the shadow, like “Geek the mage first” and “Never strike a deal with a dragon”, but her own, personal rules. Part of those were inspired by moral – because even in the shadows she was not content to just forget about moral and ethics – some were inspired by honour, but most of those personal rules were in place because of what she considered as common sense.

Some of those were: “Don't get too close to other runners – it will get you killed” or “Don't trust anyone – it will get you killed” or especially “Never trust Michael – he will get you killed”.

Michael was her fixer and he had made a habit of knowing everything there was to know in this city, that some people called the “Venezia of the North”, while others just called it “another godforsaken hellhole”. Michael was great at his job, but anyone who trusted him was crazy. Pakhet was sure, that Michael would sell out his grandmother, if she would have been still alive, for the right amount of Nuyen. Of course he would sell her out, too, if somebody just offered the right amount of money.

Another reason to keep it low. At least in theory this was to lessen the number of people willing to buy that kind of information.

But in the end Pakhet did not trust Michael. At least not further, then she could throw him – which was seven meters, too be exact, at least if she was angry enough for that.

That was exactly, why she had wanted to go see him today anyway. After all it was saver to keep an eye on him.

And so she arrived in the north of Harburg about an hour later. Normally the way took not even half that time, but not surprisingly there had been several blockades on the streets and bridges towards Harburg.

Michael owned a small gun shop here – mostly selling illegally acquired weapons – but Pakhet found the shop closed, when she parked her motorkycle in front of it. Shrugging she crossed the street, as Michael was living in a run-down apartment building just on the other side of the street.

She took of her helmet, so her fixer could see, it was her. After all he was watching most of the street using cameras. Some might have called it paranoid, but in the sixths world it was probably the most sane thing to do. Especially if one had the habit of making “special friends” the way Michael did.

Out of habit Pakhet stroke her deep red hair back, though it was that short – barely more then a stubble – that it made not much sense.

The plates for the bells mostly were not labelled, but Pakhet knew which bell button to press anyway.

It took only a few seconds, until Michael's voice came through the intercom. “Pakhet?” He sounded annoyed. “Why is it, that you cannot phone before dropping by?”

“For fuck's sake, Micha, let me in”, she growled back.

The buzzer sounded and she entered the building.

This was one of those old buildings that had been build more then 50 years ago. Hence it was not one of those sky high grown living quarters, but was only ten floors high. This was a blessing, as the lift had never worked.

Michael's two rooms apartment was on the third floor on the side facing the street. This way he could keep an eye on his shop, even when he was not there. And generally Michael was either in the shop or at home.

The door to his apartment was shut, but Pakhet knew, that she just needed to knock.

Soon the door opened. Michael smiled at her in his own, almost-not-fake way. “As I said, you could phone.” He let her in.

Michael was a human man, from all she knew almost 40 years old. But his brown hair was – dyed or not – still without any white streaks. As always he wore more elegant clothing, though she knew for a fact that it was armoured and able to withstand most bullets – at least the smaller calibres.

“I could, if I wanted to”, Pakhet replied. She waited, until the door was closed again, before she asked: “So, what do you know about the explosion?”

“What explosion?” He did his best to look innocent and failed horribly at it.

Pakhet rolled her eyes. “You know exactly what explosion.”

Michael only shrugged and went back to his desk, which was clustered with computer screens and holograms. “Yeah, but you know how it is: Information costs.”

“And you know, that you still owe me for the last disaster”, she growled, before sitting down on the old sofa standing in the middle of the room. She did not take off the armoured jacket, she was wearing – as stated before: She did not trust Michael. It was bad enough, that she could not properly wear the helmet inside.

“What disaster?”, Michael replied without looking up from the screens.

“Don't fool with me, Micha.” Pakhet gave him an annoyed gaze, though it went unnoticed.

“Alright, alright.” The man gave a defeated sigh. “But I don't have all the information and even if I had: Some parts would cost extra. Okay?”

“Start, please”, barked Pakhet.

“Well, the explosion was probably caused by explosives stolen only a few days ago. Gelignite that was stolen from one of the bigger construction companies on an transport from the port. They stole about 600 pounds.”

Pakhet lifted an eyebrow. “600 pounds?”

“Yes. At least according to my information.”

“Who are 'they'?”, Pakhet asked, when Michael did not continue.

“A smaller Go Gang from Harburg. Call themselves the Iron Raiders. I have heard some rumors that their boss is some sort of Toxic Shaman, but I am not sure, whether those are true.”

Well, while there were some toxic shamans and mages who liked blowing stuff up, they normally did not use explosives for that. So one question remained: “So, why did the stuff blow up?”

Michael shrugged. “I don't know, yet. And even if, that information would not be free.”

“Yeah.” Pakhet sighed dramaticly. “Of course it does.” For a moment she paused. When Michael did make no move to continue, she added: “So that is all you can or will tell me?”

“Yep”, he replied, concentrating on one of his screens. “Anything else you want to know?”

She looked at him, even though he did not seem to notice. “Nope.”

“Looking for a job, maybe?”

“Maybe.” She shrugged. “You know my rules.” Of course he knew the rules, most importantly, that she would – under no circumstances – do any sort of wetwork for anybody.

“Yes, yes.” Michael's eyes were scanning the top right screen. “I might have something for you later on. But there is something I need to take care of first. As I said: You should call, before you come here.”

“Whatever”, Pakhet murmured and took up her helmet. “So that means, you are going to phone me later on?”

“Probably...” Michael did not look up. “You don't have anything to do, right?”

“Who know's”, she replied and went to the door. She had actually hoped that Michael would know more about what had happened. But than again, it did not concern herself, whoever blew up... Well, whatever they had blown up. “I'll be going.”

“Sure, bye.”

“You're too kind”, Pakhet grunted, while opening the door. “See you later.”

When she left the building, she looked south, where still a large column of smoke rose towards the bleak sky. She was still curious, what the meaning of this was. After all, there was a story behind every big explosion, right? And be it just a dumb ork, that was just not careful enough...

After all she really had nothing to do for the rest of the day. So she ended up driving back to Wandsbeck, where she had rented a small house. As she had already guessed, half of the DeMeKo channels were talking about the explosion. Somebody apparently had already decided, that this was indeed a terrorist attack, so most of the news were speculating which organisation was to blame for it. Maybe the ork Underground? Maybe the Huminis? Maybe GreenWar? Different specialists were talking to different reporters and of course nobody said anything about stolen explosives or a small go gang.

It was just before 6pm – Pakhet just had made herself coffee (real coffee, mind you, no fake soykaf) – when her Comlink started buzzing. A look at the screen told her, it was Michael.

“So, you have a job for me?”, she asked, while turning down the trideo volumne.

“Good evening”, he replied in a chiding manner. “And yes, I do have a job. And I think, you will love it. You owe me for this one.”

Pakhet rolled her eyes. “I am all ears.”


	2. Introductions

It was already dusk, when Pakhet arrived in front of the small house in the centre of Harburg. As it was pretty unwise to go to Harburg by motorcycle – especially at night, when the district was pretty much crawling with gang activity – she had preferred to get there by car.  
Her car was an especially flashy Jack Rabbit coloured in canary yellow. While the colour seemed pretty noticeable, who was to expect that somebody, who drove such a flashy car was up for no good? It was one of the reasons she loved the car. Well, technically the car had not to be canary yellow, thanks to the wonders of modern technology – namely chameleon coating. But in the end it was mostly that colour, as long there was no good reason against it.  
She parked the car and looked at the house. It was one of many single-family homes of the area and as run down as the twin houses standing next to it. The area in general seemed pretty much in ruin, with even the streets being in a pretty bad state.  
“Well, let's do this”, she muttered to herself, when she got out of the car. This was the location Michael had given her and if he was right in his assumption, this would turn out pretty interesting.  
After locking the car, that now stood in front of the closed garage of the house, Pakhet went to the front door, right next to the garage. As there was only one bell button, she pressed it and waited.  
Sure enough, there were steps inside, but she had to wait for a few seconds, until the door was opened. Two men were standing there, both seemingly not very old. One of them was a human in his twenties, with ashen blond hair and a few scars in his face. The other one was an Asian elf with dark brown hair. He also did not look older then about 20 years old, but with elves: Who knew?  
Pakhet raised an eyebrow. “So, you were the idiots, who caused that explosion?” Yes, this was not the nice way to greet somebody, but after all she was only here to see, if Michael's assumption was right.  
The young human looked at her and just dragged her into the house, before closing the door. “Not so loud!”  
Pakhet almost grinned, but managed to suppress the urge. So it really was them.  
“And you are?”, the human asked.  
“First of all: Who is in charge here?”, she replied.  
It was the elf that gave a sigh. “Herr Schmidt. He is in the kitchen.” He went down the small hallway, they were standing in and seemed to want her to follow. So she went through the half opened door, through which light fell onto floor outside.  
In the room, that obviously was the kitchen, a small group was sitting or standing around the table, most of them looking pretty beaten up.  
The group consisted out of two more human man and a seemingly pretty young elf, who stood next to a doorway on the right side of the room.  
All three of them looked at her. One of the humans – well, he could as well have been an elf, was most of his head was metal – grunted. “So this is reinforcements?” He was a bit overdressed, considering that he was wearing a tuxedo.  
“Who of you is Herr Schmidt?” Pakhet asked, ignoring the question.  
The other human stood up. “I guess then, that you are Pakhet.”  
She nodded and extended her hand, when the man came over to her. “Yep, that's me.”  
Herr Schmidt shook her hand. He had a firm grip, something she could appreciate.  
“And you need reinforcements, because somebody blew up a hell lot of explosives, right?”, Pakhet asked and after a moment took one of the chairs for herself to sit down.  
Half of the men looked angry about the question (or maybe about the fact, that the explosion happened), the other half seemed rather mortified. Only the young elf leaning against the wall smiled, as if all of this amused him somewhat.  
“Well, yes”, Herr Schmidt finally replied. “This was not part of the plan.”  
“Alright”, Pakhet replied, ignoring the others. “So what should be done?”  
Herr Schmidt sat back down himself. “Right now that is the question.”  
The kitchen, while at least being equipped, looked as run-down, as the building did from outside. But at least there was working light and – apparently – running water, which was more then Pakhet would have expected from the building's exterior. Then again something in here smelled very bad, like a broken toilet, that had not been fixed for at least a few weeks. But again nothing she would not have expected from a building in Harburg.  
“So, what's your thing?”, the chrome-head asked.  
She shot him a gaze. “What do you mean?”  
Chrome-head fixated her with two red-glowing cyber-eyes. “How are you going to help here?”  
As a reply Pakhet lifted her hands and revealed the pistols integrated into her cyber-arms. “Well, normally my thing is to shoot stuff.”  
Chrome-head grimaced (at least with the non-cyber part of his face). “Cyber-arms?”  
“Indeed.”  
“How did that happen?”  
For a moment Pakhet wanted to ask, what he meant. Then she realized that he was probably asking, how she had lost her arms. “It did not happen.”  
“You did that voluntarily?” Chrome-head seemed shocked or better disgusted.  
“Yes.” She simply replied. “And you? What's your thing?”  
He was still grimacing. “Decking. Name's Slap.”  
“So, this is role call?”, asked the young human, who had dragged her inside before. The thought seemed to cheer him up a bit. But just before he could introduce himself, the doorbell rang again. “I'll go”, he said quickly.  
Not quite a minute later he returned with another young human man.  
“Well, good timing”, Pakhet muttered to herself, but loud enough that the others could hear her. “So we don't need to repeat everything.”  
“Herr Schmidt?”, the new arrival said when the named once again raise from his chair.  
“Barameus, I think?”, Herr Schmidt said.  
“Barameus, yes”, the human said and looked around. “I was told, there is some help needed, though I don't know for what.”  
“We were just doing a role call”, the other young human said. He pointed at chrome-head. “That's Slap, our decker. And that's... Err...” He pointed at Pakhet, but already seemed to have forgotten her name.  
“Pakhet. Mostly muscle”, she just said.  
“Well, then”, the newcomer said with a small bow. “As I said, my name is Barameus. I am a mage.”  
“I'm Dacart”, the other human said. “Adept and master burglar. And also really good with toxic spirits, as it turns out.”  
The apparently older elf shot him a disgusted gaze, but did not say anything. He had not sat down, but right now stood inside the doorway next to which the other elf leaned.  
Pakhet fixated him. “And you are?”  
For a moment the elf hesitated. “Kah Pak. I am a wolf shaman.”  
Meanwhile Barameus looked at the young elf. “That leaves you, I believe. You and the people in the other room.” With his thumb he pointed at the doorway Kah Pak was standing in.  
The light in the room behind was on as well. Pakhet, too, had noticed the two people inside, but had not minded them, as one of them seemed to be out cold, while the other apparently was a doctor.  
“They call me Murphy”, the young elf said. “But don't mind me. I am only the security. I was hired to keep the safe house... Well, save.” He pointed at the doorway. “The two in there are Hazel and Doctor Heidenstein.”  
Barameus nodded and for a moment there was silence. Pakhet looked at Herr Schmidt, but the man also did not seem inclined to say anything.  
“So”, she started, when her patience ended, “what are we here for? And god damn it, how did you manage to blow up that stuff?”  
It was now Herr Schmidt, who grimaced. But though once again after a short pause, he started to explain: “Well, they” – he gesticulated at some of the other runners – “where actually hired to steal a small amount of explosives for me. As a few days ago a larger amount of explosives has been stolen by a go gang, the idea was to steal a small amount from them and make then sure, that HanSec gets their hands on the rest of the explosives. The hope was, they would assume, that the missing small amount had already been used.”  
“And then the large amount blew up spectacularly”, Pakhet ended.  
Herr Schmidt gave a dry, almost sardonic smile. “Indeed.”  
“And HanSec knows that it was not all the stolen explosives, that blew up?”  
“They might. Worse: The entire ordeal has been labelled as a terrorist attack.”  
“Meaning: If some of the explosives would show up elsewhere, HanSec would connect that to the terrorist attack. And that should not happen.”  
To this Herr Schmidt nodded.  
“I still don't see the problem”, Dacart complained. The young man hat sat down on one of the chairs again and looked annoyed. “How are they supposed to know, that those explosives are part of the stuff that blew up?!”  
Pakhet looked at him. By now she was pretty sure, that he had had been directly involved with the explosion. So it was probably his fault, making him defensive. Also he did not seem to be the brightest bulb in the box. “Explosives are ID'ed”, she explained. “There are micro IDs in officially registered explosives. Also registered explosives often come with a certain chemical to mark them. So if these explosives you stole are used, it can be tracked back to the big boom from today.”  
“I thought you were muscle?”, the young elf – Murphy – remarked.  
“Muscle needs to know drek about weapons, too”, she replied.  
Herr Schmidt rolled his eyes. “She is right. As it is, the explosives are worthless to me.”  
Silence.  
Pakhet noted, she had at least to a degree managed to piss off at least half of the group. Half of this seemed to be rather unorganized. Who would send a group to an explosive retrieval, when non of them had any idea how explosives worked.  
At the doorway Kah Pak stepped aside, to let a man – another human, seemingly older then the others – step inside. As the man was carrying a med kit, she had to assume that was “Doctor Heidenstein” as the young elf had said.  
“Thing is”, chrome-head finally said, “we need a plan to either get other explosives or make those explosives usable.”  
“What about hacking?”, Pakhet asked.  
“Oh yeah”, chrome-head replied sarcastically, “never would have thought of that. Tried that. Ended with my deck almost fried and Hazel, the other decker, out cold. HanSec has good Server protections. And I might add: It is quite possible, that there is at least one offline copy about the stolen explosives, that cannot be accessed via the matrix.”  
“We would need to get into HanSec”, Dacart muttered.  
Unable to help herself Pakhet gave a short laugh. “Yeah, that sounds like fun!”  
“That would be suicide”, Kah Pak muttered. Somehow this did not seem to amuse him.  
Another silent pause. It was clear, that the group was out of ideas. Probably why they had hired more runners. Though Pakhet was not sure, why they did not just hire an explosives specialist, who would have been able to solve this in no time. Because it would have been obvious? Well, while Michael was maybe overly well connected: He had figured out the connection out in no time as it was.  
“What is about stealing other explosives?”, Barameus asked after a while.  
“No chance”, Herr Schmidt replied quickly. “Right now the only explosives are either off the map and hard to find or in the storages of mega facilities.”  
When nobody else offered any ideas, Pakhet gave a sigh. “With the right equipment it would be possible to find out, how the explosive is ID'ed. Apart from certain chemical markers, most IDs can either be removed or overwritten.”  
Chrome-head shot her a gaze. “And you know how to do that?”  
“I am not specialist, but I probably could find out, how it is ID'ed at least. Problem: I don't have the equipment.”  
Doctor Heidenstein, who had taken the seat next to Herr Schmidt and had been silent till now, cleared his throat. “I think the equipment needed would be chemical equipment, right?”  
“And scanners”, Pakhet replied.  
“I could provide both, if we were able to get them here”, he said.  
With a short nod, Pakhet looked at Herr Schmidt. Even though he just seemed to be another Johnson, this would be his decision after all.  
“We are not going to dissect explosives in this house”, he replied to the unspoken question. “If you find another place, you might as well try.”  
“What about getting a big car or something? A truck?”  
Everyone looked at Dacart, who had spoken.  
It was actually not too bad of an idea, Pakhet had to admit.  
“What about the costs?”, chrome-head said.  
“You can loan one”, Pakhet replied. “And I think as a decker you would be able to disable security systems in a rented truck.”  
Chrome-head gave another grunt. “Of course.”  
Suddenly Dacart seemed to be delighted. “Then can I drive the truck?”  
For a moment Pakhet looked at him considering whether she was to tell him, that rented vehicles normally did not came with a manual drive. She decided against it. Instead she replied: “Of course you can. We should get one, right now.”  
“Where do you want to get a truck from at this hour?”, Kah Pak asked.  
Everyone looked at him and according to their faces, they seemed to think the same: Was he not aware of the matrix?  
“We order one”, Pakhet said and took out her comlink. She was no decker, nor did she bother to do much with electronics, but it was enough – by far – to find the next car rental service, that also offered trucks and reserve one. “What about the money?”, she then asked Herr Schmidt.  
“The expenses will be covered later”, he said with a sigh. “I just have to caution you all, to not overdo it.” His voice sounded bitter and Pakhet could well understand why. After all the actual constituent probably had given him a certain budget in which all of this – additional runners and all which was to follow – had not been included.  
“Okay.” She got up and looked over to Dacart. “Well then, I would say, we should get going, so everyone can get over with that.” For a moment she hesitated. On her way here she had seen HanSec mobile control stations. While she had licenses for all her weapons, those might still lead to the wrong questions. “Also, take care of these.” She put the two pistols she was carrying on the table. After all she still had the cyber-pistols for the worst case scenario.  
“Alright!” The young man grinned and by now seemed in better mood then the rest of the group.  
Before leaving Pakhet turned around. “I guess we will be back in an hour or so.” The only reply she got, was a lot of nodding. So with a shrug she left and got back to her Jack Rabbit.  
“Interesting colour choice”, Dacart commented, when he saw the car. “I like it.”  
Pakhet just raised an eyebrow and did not reply. She unlocked the car and got onto the driver's seat, before waiting for Dacart to get in. Once the young man was buckled up, she started the motor and gave her comlink the command to display the navigation in AR.  
Moving of she shot the adept a side gaze. “So, what did happen with the big boom there?”, she asked. She was pretty sure, that he somehow had been more involved with the explosion, then the rest of the group. At least it seemed, as if the rest of them had been more annoyed then anything else, while Dacart had been a bit more awkward, when she had asked before.  
Once again he seemed to be a bit ashamed and gave her a grin. “Well, it was really just bad luck, you know?”  
“Bad luck, eh?”, she said.  
“Yeah, Tower and I infiltrated this gang to get the explosives from them but their stupid dogs somehow sniffed us out or something. So naturally we killed them, but the gangers didn't like that, so a fight broke loose and Tower ignited the stuff.”  
Pakhet raised an eyebrow. “So... Who is Tower?”  
“My ork buddy”, Dacart replied. “He stayed with the... Err... I mean he stayed behind, after we escaped.”  
Pakhet did not reply. Her gaze once again concentrated on the road in front of them. While there was pretty much no traffic, this was still Harburg – Harburg after a big explosion – so who knew what could happen.  
But then she noticed something else. At first she had assumed, that the smell from inside had stuck in her nose, but by now it should be out and yet she was still smelling it. And it still stunk.  
She activated her atmosphere sensor, that promptly returned her results suggesting the same kind of chemicals in the air, one would normally find somewhere else.  
“Say, Dacart”, she muttered, “that escape of yours. Did it involve swimming in the sewers?”  
“No”, he replied. “We had to dive.”  
“Why did I even ask?” She sighed.  
“And we met a toxic spirit”, he added. “And I managed to talk it to letting us go.”  
Pakhet rolled her eyes. “Great.”  
They almost had reached the border to Harburg and had been lucky so far to neither get controlled by HanSec, nor to run into a gang out for problems. And somehow, thankfully, it stayed that way.  
“Do you want to see a video of me talking to the toxic spirit?”, Dacart suddenly asked.  
Pakhet sighed. “Maybe later.” The AR map displayed a near gas station. Well, at least they would have something against the smell.  
So after a few minutes Dacart was sitting on the passenger seat, holding a couple of air fresheners.  
Pakhet knew well enough, that it only masked the stink, but at least she had not to smell it right now. Still she would have to have the car cleaned after this. Why had she not noticed this before? She should have taken somebody else along.  
“I sure hope, we don't have to pay for cleaning the truck”, she muttered, when they drove up next to the car rental – one of the fully automated shops.  
“So, where is the truck?”, Dacart wondered, looking at the closed garage doors.  
Pakhet did not reply, just looked at the garage number send to her via mail, before going up to the garage. It had a security panel next to it, in which she typed the passport she had been sent. Then she inserted a cred stick with enough nuyen to rent the truck for 24 hours.  
The garage door opened, revealing a white moving van.  
“Neat”, commented Dacart.


	3. Easy solutions

It was shortly after 9pm, when the truck arrived at a street a few blocks away from the save-house. Pakhet had figured, that parking the truck in front of the bungalow-like building would draw to much attention, and thankfully Dacart had agreed.

So while the later was guarding the vehicle – and probably arguing with its auto pilot – Pakhet drove the Jack Rabbit back to the save-house. While she was well able to defend herself, she really was not keen on testing those skills against an entire gang of youngsters.

Once again the rang the doorbell and was left in – this time by Murphy.

“The truck is set”, she just said, while going back to the kitchen. “So we can get this over with.” She looked around for the pistols she had left on the table. “Where are my weapons?”

Nobody replied, but she spotted the weapons in the kitchen sink anyway, though they seemed to be somehow immaterial, almost see-through. Pakhet reached out for them. They felt normal at least.

It was then she realized, that this had to be some sort of invisibility magic. “Don't ever do magic to my stuff, without asking me first”, she growled, looking at the shaman and the other mage. “Whoever did that: Never. Try. That. Again.”

“Well, I thought this would help to hide the explosives”, Barameus replied boldly.

“Well, it doesn't.” Without further ado, she put the pistols back into their holsters, checking the security first.

“What do you need those for anyway?” The mage asked.

“For shooting things”, she replied sarcasticly. “Decker, err, Slap, Doc” – she had already decided that the name “Doctor Heidenstein” was just too long – “the truck is parked a few streets away. Let's get this over with.”

It was once again Barameus, who objected: “There is no way, I am staying behind.”

Looking over to Herr Schmidt, Pakhet was waiting for him to say something. When he just nodded, she shrugged. “Whatever...”

And so they ended up in a quite overcrowded driver's cabin, with Pakhet being rather glad, that none of the others were an ork or even a troll, because in that case they would have never all fitted.

“So, where are we going?”, Pakhet asked, looking at Heidenstein.

He gave an address, right at the border of Harburg and Wandsbeck and the auto-pilot loaded route, before reminding the passengers to buckle up.

According to the navigation system, the address was associated with a hospital – while it made sense with a medic, she had to wonder, whether they could just go and get some equipment from there. When she was still working as a security guard, she would have never been allowed to just take one of the armoured vests for private use.

Apart from that, she also could not help but wondering, whether – if this guy really worked there, he would be really so careless to just reveal a part of his identity. Then again, it was not her problem. So she shrugged it off.

“Hey, you, Pakhet.” It was Dacart leaning over to her with his comlink in hand. “Watch this.”

Man, that dude had a serious need for affection. “What is it?”, she asked not hiding her annoyance.

“Me negotiating with a toxic spirit!” He grinned.

Pakhet gave a long sigh, already guessing, that he would not let it go. So she looked at the screen. What she saw seemingly was a video record done with glasses or a helmet camera. Whoever wore the glasses – it probably was Dacart – was running in a dark environment. She knew it had to be the sewers.

Somebody else was there to. While it was hard to see in the infrared video, it seemed to be an ork. The two of them where getting around a corner, when something huge started to rise out of the slop before them. It took not long for a mostly formless blob to form and block the path.

The ork and the guy recording – Dacart – tried to run through the tunnel at the sides of the spirit, but it threw them back into a slop. They tried again, but to no avail.

The spirit seemed to ready itself for attack, when a voice – clearly Dacart's – screamed: “Can't we just talk about it?”

Surprisingly the spirit held off its attack. “What do you want?”, it asked in a deep voice.

“We just want to pass through”, Dacart replied desperately.

For a moment the spirit hesitated. “What will you give me for letting you pass?”

Some hesitation. Then the view shifted downwards where hands grabbed a grenade from a belt. “I have this nice grenade with toxic gas. Would you like to have it?”

The spirit too some time to contemplate. Then a sloppy tentacle came out of the blob and grabbed the grenade. “Get out of here”, the spirit growled and moved asside.

“Thanks!”, Dacart's voice replied before he ran on.

The video was stopped and the real Dacart grinned at Pakhet. “See? Wasn't that awesome?!”

“Yeah, great”, Pakhet replied dryly wondering whether he did not realize, that this would hurt his image more then anything. But again, this was not her problem, so she shrugged it of.

Dacart though seemed to be enormously proud of this accomplishment.

Well, if he showed stuff like this around, he would see where it would get him.

Thankfully the truck stopped soon and once again there were lucky enough to not get controlled – especially considering, that they had the explosives with them.

But now the truck parked on a mostly empty parking lot in front of a smaller, five story hospital building. The sign above the entryway declared the hospital to be the “Anderson Hospital” though Pakhet had never heard of it. Considering the empty parking slot and the probable lack of patients it was not quite surprising, though. There seemed to be no lights burning over the third story purporting that the hospital was mostly empty.

“I will need help carrying some of the equipment”, Doctor Heidenstein said upon getting out of the passengers cabin.

“No problem”, Pakhet replied happy to get out of the stink surrounding Dacart.

The adept though also volunteered: “I can help, too.”

“Yeah, you stunk in a hospital?” Pakhet lifted an eyebrow. “I don't think so.” She looked at the elf – Kah Pak – who seemed to be mostly silent. “Can you help?”

“I think so”, he replied and also got out of the car.

“I will take care of the on-board console while you are gone”, chrome-head said.

“Good”, Pakhet said with a sigh, then she followed Heidenstein to the building. She kept an eye on their surroundings – after all hospitals, especially in the shadows, where not always as save as one would wish.

The guards in the entrance hall seemed a bit shady to her, but she could not quite say why. At least her suspicion about the state of the institution seemed to be validated by the empty entrance hall. There was a human woman at the front desk, but she seemed to be rather bored, though she shortly looked up from whatever she was doing and nodded at Heidenstein.

It was pretty clear that he was rather on edge, when he turned around to them. “Wait here for a moment. I need to talk with somebody about the equipment.”

Pakhet raised an eyebrow, but only replied: “Sure” while Kah Pak only nodded.

Waiting for Heidenstein to return Pakhet leaned against the wall across the front desk closely watching the the guards as well as the front lady, just in case anybody tried something funny. But nothing happened and it took the doc about five minuted to come return.

He was accompanied by an ork wearing the same formal clothing as the two guards.

“We can take the equipment”, Heidenstein just said.

“And who is that?”, Pakhet asked nodding at the ork.

“Somebody to help us carry”, the medic replied.

Knowing that it was all he would say Pakhet shrugged and waited for Heidenstein to lead the way. Still she kept an eye on the ork as all of this seemed a bit shady to her.

But once again nothing happened. They went to the second flour of the hospital and into a corridor off-limits of patients where Heidenstein lead them to a laboratory that indeed housed quite a bit of chemical equipment.

“Is there anything special we need or don't need?”, Heidenstein asked.

Pakhet hesitated for a moment. After all she was not a specialist when it came to the things they were planning. Especially considering that while she had worked with explosives before, she had rarely used professional equipment. “Well, we won't need distillery dishes”, she said half joking.

For a moment the doc smiled. “Oh, really?”, he replied dryly.

Thankfully Heidenstein seemed to have a general idea of what they needed, while Pakhet herself could at least say quite well what they would not need, so it only took them a couple of minutes to sort out what they would need. They packed the equipment in boxes and soon were on their way out of the hospital.

“You took long”, Dacart complained once they reached the truck.

Nobody bothered to reply to him, when they opened the taillift of the truck to put down the boxes. They had the equipment but something was still missing.

“We still need a table or something else to work on”, Pakhet remarked.

“And a lamp”, the doc added. “I don't think the overhead will cut it.” He sighed. “But I think we can take it from one of the unused laboratories.”

Once again Pakhet just shrugged. “Alright. Should I help carry?”

After a short moment of hesitation Heidenstein nodded. “Yeah. It would be a great help.”

So he, Pakhet and the ork without a name returned back into the building to get a proper table, chairs and a lamp from the hospital. And while she did not say anything, Pakhet had to wonder, why Heidenstein would just be allowed to get all of this out the hospital. Was he paying whoever owned it to allow him – after all the hospital would be in dire need of money with the lack of patients – or was there another reason?

But again, it did not concern her and so she did not ask any questions.

 

It took about twenty more minutes until they finally had everything they needed in the cargo area of the truck. They had not yet set up the equipment to prevent damage on the ride as without even talking everyone seemed to understand that they could not do what they were planning on the ride.

“So, what now?”, Heidenstein asked. “We cannot park the truck here while working.”

Pakhet gave a sigh. “Wasn't planning on it.” In her mind she considering where they could park the truck while working. She preferred somewhere without many people around – just in case something went wrong.

“Can't we get something to eat first?”, Dacart, who was still sitting in the driver's cabin, complained. “I am hungry.”

Pakhet wanted to object, but Heidenstein cut her off before she could even start.

“That actually is not a bad idea”, he said.

Not sure whether she should get angry she looked at him. “Huh?”

“I know a parking lot mostly used by drug dealers up in Kaltenkirchen. It's also near to one of those fast food restaurants”, he explained quickly. “That probably would help in both accounts.”

Once again Pakhet almost smiled. So here was actually somebody who also tried to keep the risk for bystanders down, eh? Again she did not say anything, but acknowledged it silently, as it was a rarer virtue then she would have wished for.

Happy to not have to sit in the driver's cabin again she chose to stay in the cargo area. Yes, it was generally not allowed, but if they were to be controlled by HanSec they would be fucked either way, considering that they were taking explosives associated with a terrorist attack for a ride.

She was not really surprised to see Heidenstein, Barameus and Kah Pak joining her, so that only Dacart and chrome-head remained in the driver's cabin. She did not know whether chrome-head had no sense of smell, had some smell-filter or just wanted to do his job, keeping an eye on the console, but she did not mind either way.

Thankfully the auto-pilot had a rather smooth way of driving, so that they had not to worry about the equipment being thrown around the cargo area.

Pakhet had to admit, that she had imagined the group responsible for that explosives to be more fun. Well, maybe it was because the actual culprit – at least if Dacart did not lie about it – had already taken to his heels, leaving only Dacart as the no so proverbial fool, but still she was pretty sure, that this was to be a rather easy solution.

She watched Kah Pak and had to wonder, what his deal was. It kinda felt like all of this did not concern him. While she was pretty sure, that she could not stand the other mage (apart from also wondering, why he was even here), she was not quite sure where to place the elf.

After a while the silence got on her nerves. “That hospital of your's”, she finally started addressing Heidenstein, “is it a street clinic?”

The doc, who seemingly had been reading something in AR – he seemed to have Cybereyes as well, even though he apparently had made an effort to obscure this, other than her or chrome-head – looked up. “Part of it is”, he answered.

“What kind of street clinic?”, she asked.

For a moment he hesitated with a reply. “The honourable kind, I hope”, he finally replied.

Pakhet smirked. “So no chop shop?”

“I hope not”, he said with emphasis, as if this question had insulted him.

“Good to know”, she replied with a shrug.

He eyes her with apparently a bit of suspicion. “Why?”

“It is just useful to know more then one street clinic. For more then one reason.”

“Sure”, Heidenstein just replied.

Once again they fell silent, so that it was a relief to Pakhet when the truck came to a stand still and somebody knocked against the side of the truck.

Somebody opened the loading ramp.

“You guys alright back there?”, Dacart asked.

Pakhet got up and went towards the ramp, to look around at the parking lot where they had hopefully arrived. Indeed they found themselves on a parking lot that was apparently designed to offer pitches for quite a few cars. Considering that it seemed to be mostly empty it was surprising nobody had used the space to put houses on it. But right now it was exactly what they needed and indeed – just as Heidenstein had said – there was the golden sign of McDonald's glowing not to far away.

Dacart stretched. “I will get something to eat. Anything I should bring?”

With a sigh Pakhet got out a cred stick topped up with 100 Nuyen. “Here. Get a menu for everyone or something.”

The adepts face creased into a smile. “Thanks. You are not so bad, you know?”

She could not help but to roll her eyes. “Just go, okay?” After all money really had not been a problem for her. While she already knew, that this run would barely pay anything, that was not true for the runs she normally did. When Dacart turned around to run over to the fast food restaurant, she turned to face the other, who mostly had come out of the truck by now. Only Kah Pak was still standing in the opening at the back of the cargo area.

“Doc, can we get started?”, she asked. “I want to get over with this soon”, she added under her breath.

“Sure”, he just replied and followed her back into the truck.

In silence they started to properly assemble the equipment on the table, before taking only a bit of the explosives.

“Do you have anything to scan of active IDs?”, Pakhet asked, when they were done with the assembly.

Heidenstein shook his head. “Nothing particular. But ask Slap. His deck should be able to pick things up, right?”

“He should be, yes”, sighed Pakhet. While she was unable to put her finger on it, there was something about chrome-head, that she found utterly unlikeable. Still she got up to ask the decker. After all she had not to like him for him to do his job.

Just when she jumped out of the cargo area she saw Dacart running over towards the truck. He stopped right in front of her, while she was going over to the driver's cabin where Slap was apparently still sitting.

Dacart held up a big, nidorous bag. “Here. Also, here. There is still some money on it.” He handed her back the cred stick.

“Thanks.” A bit surprised she took the cred stick. She would have thought that even if he did not spend all the money he would keep the rest. But it seemed that while being a fool, he was at least a somewhat honest fool. Well, as honest as professional criminals got.

She knocked against the door of the driver's cabin. “Hey, Slap, there is food and we might need your help back there for a moment.”

The door was half opened and opened completely the next moment. “Very well”, he said and seemed not to be to happy about it. He sighed, when he saw the McDonald's bag. “Well, you can call it food, I guess.”

“With flavoured soy stuff, where is the difference?” Dacart took one smaller paper bag out of the plastic bag and picked a burger out of it. With that he sat down on the concrete flour and started to eat.

“It is still soy stuff”, Slap muttered but got himself a paper bag, too.

Without much appetite, as she did not like the fatty soy food, she took one of the burgers herself and sat down on the ramp to eat, while most of the others seemed very hungry. They probably had not eaten in a while, but it also meant that they could not continue until they were done. Then again she reasoned with herself that she rather had a non hypoglycaemic doc helping her with the explosives. After all while they had equipment the equipment was not meant for what they were doing with it. Not to mention, that the cargo area was far from being a proper laboratory.

So she waited for him and chrome-head to finish eating, so they could help. When Slap finally came around to the cargo area she sighed with relief.

“Can you just check for the ID?”, she asked.

“Of course”, the decker said and lifted his metal arm in front of the explosives, that was now laying on the table.

Pakhet could not see a deck, so she had to assume, that his deck was somehow integrated into the chrome-arm. She knew that it was possible and as she knew how expensive cyberdecks tended to be, it seemed to be quite reasonable.

After a few seconds Slap looked up. “The things have a signature. It is encoded. I could probably somehow overwrite it, but from what I know those things need to use a certain encode.”

“Also, we don't yet know about any chemical trails”, Pakhet added. It would have surprised her, if the explosives had not been ID'd.

“Exactly”, said the chrome-head.

“Well, I guess, we will have to find out.” She turned towards Heidenstein. “So we should get started.”

He nodded. “Yes, we should.”

“Good.” Pakhet turned the desk lamp they had taken from the hospital on and had her comlink display a list of the most common chemicals used for chemical trails in plastic explosives at the right side of her field of vision.

She noticed, that Heidenstein sat down besides her.

“I have a list with chemicals that are used for this”, she said showing her comlink. “I know how to handle explosives, you know chemistry. So I would take that you know how to identify this chemicals?”

“I would think so”, Heidenstein replied with a smirk. “Would you mind sending me the list?”

Hesitating at first she nodded. “Sure.” She suppressed her number. “Number?”

He gave her a number and she had to wonder whether it was his actual number or a metalink wired to relay all messages. At least his comlink vibrated not a second later and from what she could say he did the same she had done and displayed the list in AR.

Finally they got to work. It became apparent very quickly they were dealing with high rated explosives – no wonder Herr Schmidt or whoever was behind him wanted to get his hands on the stuff. But obviously the explosives were accordingly ID'd in every possible way. The ID tags were micro tags, making it practically impossible to remove without the right equipment. Instead of one chemical trail the stuff used at least two different ones. Apart from that there was one more problem for the use of these explosives: It was designed to be ignited with the help of micro-chips with a special signal or something similar.

At least they worked rather quickly. Pakhet saw with a relief, that Heidenstein really did knew what he was doing and worked determined and focussed. Still it took them about two hours to go through all of the common chemical trails, so that they did not finish before midnight.

“Well, this is not good”, she muttered to herself, looking at the notes they had taken. By now she felt rather tired. In a way working on the explosives was more exhausting then an hour of extensive fighting.

“We should talk to the others”, Heidenstein said. Somehow he looked less tired and Pakhet envied him for that.

“You do that”, she replied and got out her comlink. “I make a call.”

He raised an eyebrow. “What kind of call?”

“My fixer. We will need somebody to clean this stuff up, if we don't want to break into HanSec headquarters.”

Once again he gave one of those short smirks. “True. But we need to talk to Herr Schmidt before getting someone else involved.”

“Yeah. But I would prefer naming him a price”, she replied.

“Well, then do it your way”, he said. “Just don't be to precise.”

She rolled her eyes. “This is not the first time I am doing this kind of stuff, you know?”

“Sure”, he said and opened the ramp, to talk to the others.

Though she was pretty sure Michael was already asleep, she speed dialled his number. She was not surprised that it took him a few seconds to get onto the line and did so with an audible yawn.

“You know what time it is?”, he said and his tired face appeared on the screen.

“Sure I do”, she replied annoyed. “But I need something and I am rather sure you can deliver.”

“Huh?” It seemed to take him a few seconds to understand what she was saying. “You know that it will cost extra for waking me up.”

“In this case not my problem. Listen: I need somebody who can clean out and retag explosives. A specialist. I am sure you know at least one person able to, right?”

After a moment a smug grin appeared on his face. “So I was right.”

“I might tell you later”, she said. “So you know somebody?”

He hesitated for a moment. “I do know somebody. I am not sure whether I can reach him at this time. I will write you. Just a moment.”

“Hurry, alright?”, she urged him, before ending the call without even so much as saying good-bye.

Then she got up. After all she realized that she should at least tell the others what she was going to do – even though she was going to do it no matter what any of them said.

“So you want to hire someone else?”, chrome-head asked, just when she jumped out of the cargo area.

“Basicly like that”, Pakhet sighed and looked over to the doc. He already had told them, eh?

“So you cannot get that stuff out yourself?”, Barameus asked his arms crossed.

“No I cannot”, she barked at him. “But other then you I am good for something.”

The mage just shrugged. “We can still just break into some HanSec station, right?”

“Right. Great idea.” Her voice was gushing with sarcasm.

“I would rather not break into any HanSec station”, Kah Pak said quietly.

“I'll have to second that”, Heidenstein said. “I think hiring somebody to clean up the explosives is still more efficient then trying anything...” For a moment he hesitated. “Stupid.”

Chrome-head gave a long sigh. “Technically I agree, but we are not getting a lot of money for this either way, now that it is already divided by six.”

“And I really need money”, Dacart muttered.

Barameus once again stepped up to them. “I would not mind getting at least something out of this.”

Pakhet snorted. “You don't complain. You are basicly getting money for sitting around.” With anger she looked around. “So, do you prefer to attack the next HanSec station? If so, be my guest, but don't count on me accompanying you!”

“I thought you were muscle”, Barameus muttered.

She flashed at him. “I am muscle, but I am not stupid and more then that: I am not suicidal.” Still she was holding her comlink in the hand. “I mean it is your call. Those of you, who want to do something stupid are welcome, too. I will call Herr Schmidt, when you are locked up.” Of course she was bluffing as she knew it would made for bad rep to let the bunch of them run into their own demise.

There was silence for a moment and just as she thought nobody was jumping to run to the next HanSec station.

As – after a full minute – nobody had said anything, she got out the number she had gotten from Herrn Schmidt. Thankfully Michael had replied, too. 5000. Well, it was much, but it was the decision Herr Schmidt would have to make. “I gather, I can call Herrn Schmidt now, right?”

Nobody objected.


End file.
